


Fathers and Sons

by dan_vs92



Series: Fiddleford-Appreciation-Month 2017 [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Homelessness, Mental Health Issues, physical illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-01 20:47:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10199789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dan_vs92/pseuds/dan_vs92
Summary: Tate finds his dad sick at the dump





	1. Chapter 1

It was a weekly tradition now, not one he was proud of but tradition none the less.

A simple drive by the dump, stopping at the sign longer than necessary always resulting in someone honking loudly behind him. He waited while the impatient person behind swerved around him, flipping him off as he went by.

His dad was nowhere to be seen today. He pulled away from the stop sign and parked inside the dump to see if his dad was here. He frowned at the large scrap piles being buried underneath the recent snow, his dad had been working on something but not for awhile. A shiver ran up his spine as he entered his dad’s run down little hut, it was colder in there then it was outside. 

He found himself unable to move as he set his eyes on the bathtub, his dad’s half blue barefoot hanging out the edge.

He couldn’t form any words from his stuttering lips. He wanted to call out to him but he couldn’t. He wanted to shake him until he got up but couldn’t move. He merely stood there like he was eight years old again standing in front of the phone every day waiting for dad to call home to finally say he was ready to come home.

A rattled cough brought him back to the here and now, but he didn’t feel like a man well into his thirties, he felt like he was trapped as an eight year old at the cusp of losing his father forever.

There was a surreal feel around him and the only thing that did exist was the cold wind blowing through the pelt covering the door way. His bulky frame was the only thing keeping the cold from touching his dad, who still hadn’t moved out of his metal bed (that he hoped wouldn’t be his coffin when he got out of his trance). 

Faint scratches on the side of the tub and the low moans that sounded like his name broke him from the spell his nerves had put him under and he was finally at his dad’s side.

“Dad…?” Tate called in a shaken tone too stiff to move from the spot he was standing in. A gurgled, almost inhuman groan was his only response.

He snapped out of his stupor and finally took action, moving slowly to the side of the tub. His racing heart and the gasping breathes the only thing audible to him as time seemed to slow reaching the side of the tub.

He gulped gripping the side of the tin, eyes looking up at the hoard of machinery his father was trying to organize and put in their proper place on one of the side wall, just listening to his father’s wheezy breathing assuring him he wasn’t too late yet.

He had time to save him and he was squandering it with his childish fears. He scowled as the first thing his eyes settled on was the raccoon snuggled up in his dad’s tangled and knotted beard. He was more aggressive then he meant to be as he swatted the creature away with his hand, snarling it get out of here. The animal hissed at him but its skittish nature defeated its territorial instinct and it fled from the man triple its size swatting at it. 

“T-“his father began but a coughing fit interrupted his train of thought and he went silent once more. Tate didn’t break that silence, still refusing to look down at his ill father, placing his hand on his forehead, only to yank it back. He took a gulp then another trying to keep his stoic nature, his dad was burning up.

Tate gently and slowly put his hands around his dad, still not looking at him not wanting to see how bad he let him get and picked him out of the tub without a fight. He didn’t know if it was his dad shaking or him as he slowly walked wordlessly out of the shack, his dad was so light. His bones apparent against his fingers, his skin like thin paper. He didn’t know who to blame for the state he was in. Himself, his mom, his former god father, or letting the responsibility fall squarely on his dad’s shoulders and that always made the situation he placed himself in harder.

He kept his silence all the way to the truck, he kept it after bundling his dad in a thick blanket he always kept in the tool box ‘just in case’ and he didn’t attempt to break it when his dad began rambling nonsense next to him. He just kept his attention on the road as if nothing had happened all the way home. 

—

He settled him down in his own bed upon arriving back home. The thought of taking him to the hospital had occurred to him but he was afraid once he was admitted, the doctors wouldn’t give him back. Locking him up in a place he knew he didn’t want to be until he finally died a lonely death far away from him, the only family he had left.

He surprised even himself as he tucked his dad into his own bed gently, piling his few extra blankets on him knowing the old furnace couldn’t completely keep the chill out and placed a soft kiss on his forehead. The act was small and it barely lasted a second but it made an impact. His father sighed contently, a smile forming and he was able to sleep comfortably despite his high fever.


	2. Chapter 2

“Tater Tot.” 

Tate tossed on the couch, once more becoming an eight-year-old, alone and sick in his bed.

“Pumpkin pie, you feelin’ Ok?” 

His father was young again, smile on his face as he touched his forehead with his cool, long fingers. Tickling his face making him crack a smile as he brushed his hair back. Placing a gentle kiss on his forehead.

“Poor baby, I’ll cancel my appointment today and stay home ta take care of ya. Ya don’t need to be alone feelin’ so bad.” 

Tate’s eyes opened to the present, his elderly father hacking up mucus in the next room. It sounded painful but Tate couldn’t find the strength to get up and go to his side.

He lay there listening to him hack until he heard him finally settle back down to sleep. The upstairs living quarters of his shop were small and cramped. When it was just him, it was enough room but with his dad here it felt cramped and too small.

A door didn’t even divide him from his sick father, the hinges had busted off the bedroom door not long after he settled in and he never got around to putting another one up not thinking there was much of a point since it was just him. Through the open door way he could he see his dad’s slight form tossing and turning on the small bed. He looked up towards the ceiling he had to fix several times since moving in ten years ago, the lines from the holes he had to fill in visible even in the dark.

It had been ten years since he moved out here looking for him not knowing if he was alive or dead after the nearly twenty years he missed him. His mom acted like he was dead, never spoke of him, pretended he was never part of their lives leaving a void in his heart. He wanted his dad back for so long, he felt empty and alone without him. His mom tried but she was a closed off person and very personal, it always felt like she was keeping her distance from him and the rest of this world, his dad though had always been warm and inviting.

He looked through his door way at his dad hacking again. The man in there wasn’t who he wanted, he was a stranger. He wanted his dad to be his self again and it frustrated him to no end that even after ten years of trying, he was still this stranger. 

He just lay there listening to him hack for a few minutes longer before getting up to make him something in the kitchen to help him.

He didn’t have very much food, he desperately needed to make a run to the super market, but he did have some cough syrup and some left over antibiotics he had left over from the last time he was sick. He would dig them out of the bathroom medicine cabinet as soon as he found something for his dad to eat to gain some of his strength back and maybe help him put on some weight.

He threw some canned soup in a bowl and groaned in annoyance when his microwave wouldn’t start again. He regretted taking more after his mother and not his ingenious father at times like this. He recalled when he was little watching his dad happily fixing the kitchen appliances with anything he could get his hands on, his mother thanking him with a fake smile both he and his father knew was hiding his annoyance. He wasted his genius with his computer company that was going nowhere in the garage instead of taking any of the high paying jobs his mother not very subtly circled in the paper he read every morning. 

He took the job that would end up destroying him to try to save his failing marriage even a child like Tate knew was barely hanging together by a thread. 

Knowing the things, he knew now, he felt nothing but bitterness at his father not standing up for his business and staying. His parents might still be together now and he would have had a pleasant childhood with his father around.

He shook the thoughts away, no use thinking about all that now. He needed to make sure his dad was tended to, maybe giving him a more loving touch would help him become the man he used to be before this world broke him.

He would agree with one thing his mother said about his father in hushed whispers when she thought he wasn’t near, his father was weak.

Tate wanted to help him become strong and maybe that’s what lead him to doing the things he did. He just wanted his dad back. He wanted back the man who loved and cared for him. The gentle, soft spoken man who helped him with his homework and taught him to play the banjo. He wanted the parental figure back he always knew he could go to with his problems who would understand him and be nothing short of compassionate towards him.

He wanted his dad back and he was willing to do anything to get him back. He was afraid to get professional help, he didn’t want someone else ripping his dad from him again. 

He knew his dad wouldn’t really mind the cold soup, his diet over the years had mainly consisted of straight from the can food.

He pulled a soda from the fridge (the only thing he currently had) and made his way into the bedroom.

His dad was sitting up, holding his head, looking out the window, his uncovered body making the bed shake.

“Dad?” Tate called making him jump and his glassy eyes hit him, a feral fear in them as if he didn’t recognize his own son (which sadly wouldn’t be the first time that had happened).

“Tater Tot?” his dad croaked out before going into a coughing fit again, Tate sighed and gently began rubbing his dad’s back soothingly.

“Here,” he said popping the soda open and thrusting it in his dad’s hands startling him a little. He was shaking again, so he pulled the blanket around him again making a small smile form on his dad’s lips.

“I’m gonna get some medicine for ya and then I want ya ta eat,” he said firmly eying his dad up and down as he flipped on the light. He was gaining some color back and that was a good sign at least.

He frowned at the thick wads of guck in his beard, he was gonna have to make him take a bathe as soon as hid fever went down.

He handed his dad the pills and he very shakily took them, his good hand was shaking too hard for him to be able to hold the spoon and feed himself.

His dad was surprised and almost embarrassed when he fed him the first bite, stuttering out he could do it, he wasn’t that bad off. Tate, however, didn’t have to argue with him the coughing fit cut his dad off and he very gently helped him take another drink from his soda before continuing to feed him. 

When that was done he gently eased his dad back down in the bed covering him with the blankets once more. His dad wouldn’t go down, staring out the window again.

“What is it?” he asked but his dad didn’t respond, just staring out the window.

“I saw something out there,” he whispered already shaking and he let out a small cry as the tree outside his window gently tapped against it as the wind began blowing faster.

“Its something bad,” he said as tears began to fall, “I can’t explain it…” 

Tate sighed. It always came back to this, his dad and his fear of the unknown. Something was always out there. He would never completely forgive his former god father for putting these ideas in his head and making him go off the deep end like he had.

“Then don’t,” Tate said very gently pulling his dad away from the window, “That something will be gone when you feel better. It’s not real, dad.”

A part of him knew his dad wasn’t lying, there was something out there. Something dangerous, something he couldn’t explain but he wouldn’t let old wives tales and his own paranoia destroy him like it had his father. He was stronger than that, he would make them both strong enough to deal with it. 

“Tater Tot…” his dad began and he gently cut off his babblings with a gentle kiss to the forehead.

“I swear ta ya dad, ya don’t have to face this all alone anymore. Not when ya think this way, let me help you. Let me make you better again..”

Tears he had been holding in for so long began to fall as he gripped his dad’s arm harder then he needed to. He didn’t notice the whimper that came from his ill father but the finger gently brushing away his tears made him jump a little.

He looked down at his dad’s worried stare and didn’t see a stranger anymore. He melted against him as if he was a child again and felt him run his fingers through his hair.

“I won’t let ya be alone in this scary world, Tater Tot,” he whispered kissing his son gently making him cry harder than he had in years holding his dad tighter.

They fell asleep like that, Tate holding onto to his father for dear life and his dad holding back. Both afraid and alone together for once.

The next morning, Tate would awake to find the lump next to him gone, he shot up instantly. A fear growing inside him that he left and went back to the dump while he was still so ill. He began breathing hard as he raced out of the room but a smile settled on his face when he found him.

He was humming a familiar tune Tate had heard throughout his childhood, as he sat on the kitchen floor pulling the microwave apart, fixing it for him.

He smiled brightly at his son as he pulled out wires and Tate smiled back, for the first time in ten years feeling he was taking a step towards getting his dad back and he wasn’t going to squander this chance.

**Author's Note:**

> I might add more to this, idk for now.


End file.
